Well put, Marjorie. In addition to the rage felt by women who reject their reproductive capacity, I see a great deal of contempt and blame towards those who do willingly embrace the whole of womanhood. I can't help but think this arises, in part, from the need to justify the choices they've made, and the identities they've formed around their philosophies, commitments and causes.

I find it absurd that these feminists don't ever realize that they don't gain anything by securing these "rights," especially abortion. All they do is give men more freedom from responsibility, and end up lowering their own standards to the level of the men they can't stand.

Good article, but let's be honest. There really are two false assumptions made by radical feminism:

1) All men are jocks, millionaires, and sexual perverts.

2) If women are to be respected, they must become jocks, millionaires, and sexual perverts.

I'm exaggerating to prove a point, of course, but doesn't it sometimes seem like this is exactly what radical feminists are thinking?

Anyway, ever since I was twelve or thirteen, I've noticed that some women seem to view life through such mud-colored glasses, resented it, and been tempted to despair of the possibility of relating to women because of it. And do note that I say "tempted," not "succumbed."

My Grandmother always encouraged me to dream big and study hard. She never bad mouthed men the way modern feminists do in articles like the one referenced.

Grandma would have considered me a feminist, but these modern feminists certainly do not!

The writings of John Paul II about women, marriage and fertility are all so very deeply pro-woman that I am amazed that women like this Pollitt cannot see the truth of it.

I wasn't born Catholic, but the respect for women I have experienced inside the Catholic church--respect for them as mothers, as caretakers AS WELL AS respect for them as Doctors and Lawyers and Educators--in short, respect for women as complete beings--far outstrips as environment I have ever been in. Not even in Graduate School did I experience this level of respect.

As a Catholic woman, I find the expectation is: of course I have children AND of course I have a brain, an education and the ability to apply both to job and family.

Feminism today demands that I cut off my capacity to have children OR ELSE they will refuse to recognize my brains and education--my response to that is unprintable.

I loved Wendy Shallit's books. And will have to look for more articles by Campbell. These new girls on the block really rock!

The good news is that feminists of Pollitt's stripe are breeding (or rather, not breeding) themselves out of existence. The next generation certainly won't learn this sort of thought from their mothers.

Well, given the broken family I grew up in, the person I have the deepest connection to, family-wise, is my mother. Being a female engineer in the late 1970s, she sued her employer for gender-based pay discrimination and won.

However, that kind of equality would mean nothing to radical feminists, because she also has five children. The fact that my mother lived the very life that created so many radical feminists, and rejected that entire point-of-view because it conflicted with her convictions about God highlights the origin of the movement.

It is thus incredibly misfortunate that my sister has fallen into their orbit.

Scott, your last comment really tugged on my heart and sent me back up to Ann's reference to JP II writings on women and "the truth of it". Having myself spent years living the radical feminism "faith" system, I know personally (1) how difficult it can be to start asking - and answering - the tough questions that do naturally nag most women within that "orbit" and (2) how much happier life becomes when a woman can live in harmony, rather than battle, with her nature. I still have friends participating in various degrees with radical feminism and I have compassion for them. I try to focus on the anger and unhappiness so many experience and whether it seems "fair" to them that women's reproductivity, not male fertility, is treated by culture and industry as a commercial enterprise, to be manipulated, controlled, medicated, rejected and denigrated. "What's wrong with us just the way we are?", I often ask these "liberated" women. This is the essence, in my opinion, of our sex-unique God-given dignity ~ and we've allowed a thought-movement to convince even our youngest women that their reproductivity is a disposable nuisance that must be "managed" so that it does not interfere in "life". And just WHOSE life would that be? I will keep your sister in my prayers.

Joan of Ark was the youngest Commander in Chief in the history of the world, she was Catholic, and she was a woman.

Andy's right...all the angry young mena and women are angry old men and women. As one who tried it their way, realized it was destroying families and jeopardizing children's safety (they get pushed so far down the priority list, see)

The shriller this woman screams, the more desperate she gets. I will pray that God touch her heart.

How sad. These dinosaurs don't even realize how pathetic and desperate they really are. How sad.

I see these women all too often, alone with their little dogs and so bitter, vicious.

The damage their mindset has done is STAGGERING. When the innocent and most vulnerable cannot get haven in the womb in which they were meant to be cherished, then there is no love in the world.

This world needs love more than anything else, but children, the weak, the sick and the dying are treated with contempt and now we have generations of young people who do not know what it is to love.

At its best, feminism was meant to get a hearing in male circles for the concerns of the innocent, the weak, the children. It was meant to give a voice to the voiceless and make women's concerns heard.

Instead it is responsible for the most bloodshed ever seen in the history of the world, and not of the ones with a voice, strength and power, but the very ones women were supposedly giving voice to their needs for.

A true travesty from one end to the other.

I used to subscribe to much of the radical feminist ideology. It led me to make horrible decisons, such as getting a tubal ligation and eventually becoming a sex worker. My experiences as a stripper were so devastating that they forced me to confront the direction my lifestyle and philosophy were taking me, and I became a Roman Catholic. Now I know what authentic femininity is as opposed to this Marxist, anti-woman nonsense. My full testimony is on www.savedfromstripclubs.org.

I, too, used to subscribe to this nonsense. It led me to divorcing my husband and leaving my children to live on my own for a time. I will regret that for the rest of my life. My children have since forgiven me and we have good relationships now. I cannot think of that time in my life without feeling much pain. Loving human relationships are fundamentally more important than any "earthly success."

Excellent website!

Pam,
Thanks for sharing your inspiring story and your website. Can I ask you to pray for Theresa, a friend of my daughter, who is caught up in stripclub life? I will direct her family to your website.

Women and men are to be at each other's side, not thorns in them. People need to realize that abortion and contraception are industries which like most today have little or no care for anything but profits. Industires jump on such things as radical feminism or whatever it is at the moment and seize the opportunity. Education is the key to understanding what the consequences or anything is, but people just don't take the time, like the original author attacking the Pope and LDS. She needs to go back to school.